U-18 Japan national team launched its training camp in Oita. Their aim is to play in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Korea Republic 2017.

All the squad players were born after 1 January of 1997 and some of them have started their career as professional players.

The team had a two hour evening training session. OGAI Tomohiro, the team’s Conditioning Coach, started the training with warm-up exercises and then carried out some practical training such as pass control, 3-on-2, a mini-game using a limited area equal to the width of the penalty area, and shooting exercises.

The training period is until 28 March, and the team will have two training matches: one is against Verspah OITA on 25th and the other against Oita Trinita on 26th. The players and all the team staff will watch the Kirin Challenge Cup 2015 match between SAMURAI BLUE (Japan National Team) and Tunisia National Team. 

Players’ Comments

IWATA Tomoki (Oita Trinita U-18)
I was looking forward to this training because it’s been a while since I last joined the team. During the training sessions today, I was trying to understand what the team wants to do and I wanted to show what I can contribute to it. I think I could show my advantages in the training, but I know that I can do more, so I will express my strengths more from tomorrow. In the meeting before the practical training sessions, I had some things that I need to understand more, but I still believe that I could contribute to what the team wants to do today. This time, I want to understand the team’s strategy very well. I keep trying to show my strengths as much as possible and at the same time I want to have a good level of mutual understanding with my team mates on what we want to do as a team.

KATO Yuki (Omiya Aldija Youth)
I am very happy to join in this training camp. In the first training sessions, I paid extra attention to understanding my teammates’ characteristics through communicating well each other. It was such a good mood we had today. Tomorrow we are having a practice match so I just want to get ready well to keep good level of play of mine and I’m happy to contribute to the team.

MACHIDA Koki (Kashima Antlers Youth)
It has been a first day of this training, and from the beginning I could communicate well with other teammates both on and off the pitch. At the practical training session, I was careful about sharing the image of “building-up the form, breaking through, and finishing” with my teammates. We have only limited time for this camp, but I want to show what I can do as much as possible for the qualifying stage of the AFC U-19 Championships in October. I also want to maximise this chance to learn as much as possible through working hard in the practice matches for the next 2 days.

TAKAGI Akito (Gamba Osaka Youth)
I am very glad to be selected for the member of this camp. There are some professional players and many of first-time players for this camp, so I just want to have a good communication with all of them. Today, we had a meeting before the training sessions and shared the team strategy. It was good to have the idea about what to do before practical sessions because I could play well paying attention to the strategy. Tomorrow we have a practice match, so I want to do my best to win the match.

Schedule

Future Schedule